MOSCOW, April 24(Xinhuanet)-- Russia's Soyuz TMA-5 spaceship carrying a three-man crew undocked from the International Space Station(ISS) Sunday night, starting its journey back to Earth, the Russian space agency's mission control center in Moscow said.

The 10th crew of the space station-- Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and US astronaut Leroy Chiao-- and Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori who spent 8 days onboard the ISS conducting scientific experiments, left the station at 22:45 Moscow time(1845 GMT) in the landing capsule of the spaceship.

"Salizhan Sharipov manually undocked the Soyuz TMA-5 from the ISS at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time in line with the plan and started the departure. The undocking complied with the standards," Valery Lyndin, spokesman of mission control center, was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying.

The Soyuz is expected to land early Monday morning in the northern steppes of Kazakhstan, where Russian helicopters and planes, along with a US medical team, are on call for the search operation.

"The landing capsule will touch ground 89 km north of the Kazakh town of Arkalyk at 02:07 Monday, April 25," Lyndin said.

Ten helicopters and three planes will be on stand-by in the airover the landing area and the first contact with the cosmonauts isexpected to be established by radio or visually after the capsule's parachute opens at about 10 km from ground, Vladimir Popov, headof the Defense Ministry's aerospace search and rescue department, was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying.

"The landing will be complicated by darkness and melted snow," Popov said.

The 11th crew to the ISS, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips along with Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency, arrived a week ago to replace Sharipov and Chiao, who havebeen working on the station since October.

Russia's space program has been the station's lifeline for two years since the suspension of US shuttle flights after the Columbia disaster. US shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003, killing seven astronauts onboard.

The US space agency NASA is expected to resume shuttle flights as early as May 15. Enditem